What Jeremy Corbyn's digital manifesto will mean for the UK

Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks at the launch of his 'digital democracy manifesto'

Getty Images / Dan Kitwood / Staff

Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn has launched a 'digital democracy manifesto' that promises greater internet rights for those in the UK.

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The four-page manifesto, which was revealed at a London event yesterday by the party leader, puts an emphasis on eight different technological areas. These areas cover: online debate; a digital bill of rights; open-source software; digital identifications; cooperative ownership of digital platforms; and high-speed broadband for all.

Many of the ideas put forward were based on other areas of technological development. Although, these have not necessarily transferred well to governments around the world.

In the manifesto, Corbyn said he wanted to create a "digital bill of rights". This, according to the document, would be a "public statement of the political, civil and socio-economic principles for the networked version of British democracy, including universal access, community media, open learning and cooperative creativity".

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The idea is not unheard of around the world. Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, has previously called for an "online Magna Carta" to protect the independence of the net. In 2015, Italy became one of the first countries in the world to introduce a bill of rights to protect internet users; it followed Brazil, which launched its own online rights in 2014.

And, as far back as 2011, the United Nations declared that the internet involves human rights. Earlier this year UN officials restated the position and went further to say internet connections shouldn't be disrupted by governments and officials.

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Elsewhere in the manifesto, Corbyn said "publicly funded software and hardware" should be open source – making it possible for anyone to recreate and use the creations. Across the private sector, open-source software and hardware is widely used: Google's Android operating system runs on the principle; artificial intelligence leaders, including Elon Musk, have backed open AI standards; and Facebook open-sourced its data centre designs in 2011.

Open sourcing has struggled to make it across the divide to mainstream public sector use. Back in 2007, the Conservative Party, while in government, said using open-source software could save the country £600m per year.

The UK's IT strategy says that commissioned solutions should be open source "where appropriate" – not as default as Corbyn's manifesto says. The strategy document states national technical standards exist to ensure security and: "Closed or open-source code is not more or less secure in the majority of cases due to licensing alone."

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Elsewhere the White House has issued a policy to encourage more open-source software in government; Uganda is, among other countries, pushing a greater use of the standards.

Gov.UK

While some of Corbyn's plans are being adopted around the world, closer to home some of the manifesto proposals are already a reality under a number of different guises. The plans to allow coding for all are encouraged by the EU's coding for all lessons, and his "universal internet" proposal has already been deemend not to be worth it by current officials.

A digital citizen passport – "a voluntary scheme that provides British citizens with a secure and portable identity for their online activities" – has similar roots in one government scheme. GOV.UK Verify has been developed by official coders to allow people to prove who they are online. Elsewhere, Estonia, one of the world's most developed digital nations, has a digital identification system in place and also allows others from around the world to register as e-residents.